Chapter 40

40

MINA

I should've known the next dick I put in my mouth would belong to a liar.

"Mina?" Sylas asked, quickly reabsorbing himself away, because he could do that—he could just erase any part of him at will, whereas I was trapped inside my broken mind.

"Fuck you," I said, and started crawling away from him at once.

"What?" he asked, with sharp concern.

He should've thought of that before he lied to me though.

Nolan was dead, he'd shucked out his mind like an oyster, and that was how he knew...everything.

Everything , everything — everything!

"You heard me!" I said, making it into my bathroom, where I slammed the door and locked it, for whatever good it would do.

"Mina!" he shouted from the other side. "Are you all right?"

"You lied to me!" I howled back at him, hitting the cheap plywood door with both fists.

"I don't understand!" he shouted back.

"Neither do I!" I hit the door again and sank down. "You were supposed to—I thought I could trust you! Why the fuck?" This last statement was directed at myself. "How could I be so stupid? Again? I fucking am the lowest common denominator."

Sylas phased through the door, appearing halfway through it, like he was frozen in carbonite.

"Get the fuck out of here!" I yelled. I was sure all my neighbors were up by now, and my lease would be cancelled tomorrow.

"Mina," he said low, patting the empty air between us with his palms.

"I'm not your fucking lamb," I snarled.

"Okay," he said. "I am sorry. Again."

I searched his eyes, his face, his entire being, for anything that was untrue in the moment—and when I didn't find anything, I started doubting myself, all over again.

"Why can you not trust me?" he asked.

"Because you lied. You said Nolan was alive—but clearly he's not—you ate his mind when he died." I leaned back and pulled a wad of toilet paper off the roll to wipe my nose with—and then started trying to swipe the taste of him out of my mouth.

"Mina, I did not," he said, catching my wrist to stop me, and fully entering the room.

"Then how did you know?"

"Know what? "

I shoved him back and rose up on my knees, pulling down the edge of the underwear I had on so he could see. "That they made me their lamb. Here," I said, pointing at the hastily carved mark of a lambda, that Trent and the others had etched into my skin in the woods that awful night.

"Oh, Mina," Sylas said, like his breath left him. "I didn't know."

"Then why did you say that?" I asked him, halfway through a sob. I was so fucking tired of crying. I didn't want to cry anymore.

"I saw it in a nightmare of yours. You were a lamb, being chased by wolves. And I suppose I've thought of you like that, ever since."

"A stupid, stupid lamb," I said, falling back, sinking my head—but he caught my chin.

"A lamb who's helped me kill three people—and been responsible for twenty more. A lamb growing claws and teeth." He pulled up my face so I was forced to look at him. "Tell me how this Nolan hurt you. I want to take all of your pain and give it back to him."

My jaw dropped, and then I snapped it shut again, as he removed his hand. I couldn't imagine telling him, seeing as Nolan's ingress had been particularly humiliating—but then I realized that even if I didn't, he'd eventually read it on the inside of Nolan's skull.

"When the police couldn't find the cellar, I went back myself one night. Mostly to prove I wasn't crazy and imagining everything." I sank back on my heels and looked down.

"And no doubt set off one of the magical tripwires they had there, protecting it," Sylas said, as I wrung my palms against my lap.

"Well. I like that version of things better, at least. And here I'd been thinking all this time that I was just an idiot." Especially seeing as everyone else in the world seemed to think I'd gotten what I deserved .

Except for Sylas.

"They attacked me, it was bad, the end," I said, roughly truncating what had seemed like hours' worth of agony. "They mostly took turns, except for Nolan, who went twice." As if having his massive wall-like body over me the first time hadn't been bad enough—having him flip me over and shove himself up my ass had been—I shook my head roughly. "I don't want you doing that to him."

Sylas tilted his head to look at me. "But murder is allowed?" he asked, with bemusement.

I snorted. "It's different."

"So be it," he said with a nod. "And do you trust me now, Mina?"

I blinked. This was an awfully strange conversation to be having on the floor of my bathroom, but it was far too late to turn back now. "Do you actually care?"

He seemed to consider his answer before he gave it, like it was complicated. Maybe caring for him was like his dick—all muddled up with the rest of him. "I believe I do."

"Then . . . okay." I had no idea where he was going.

"Good. Take off your clothing for me, please."

I made a face, but did it. Why not? Trent had already shared my nudes all around campus. My tits were practically public utilities at this point—accessible, overused, and taken for granted. And now that I wasn't hiding the lambda, taking off my underwear didn't matter either, really.

"Why?" I asked, as I was pulling it off.

"Because I would like to see the places that he hurt you."

"Oh, God," I muttered. I didn't realize he wanted to turn me into one of those dolls they gave to little kids at the police station. "Sylas?— "

"May I touch it?" he asked, now kneeling on the same level I was, coming closer with his hand, reaching for the mark.

I nodded while frowning. I'd keloided like a motherfucker. "It's so ugly. I think they did a bad job on purpose. So people would think it was me who'd done it—jokes on them, I never showed anybody." I already knew there was no point in going to the police, so why bother?

"Till now?" Sylas asked, tracing a clawed fingertip around its ridges.

"Yeah."

"Then I am glad you are trusting me," Sylas said. "I think I'll make this pattern on Nolan repeatedly, as I flay off his skin. What do you think about that?"

I bit my lips, as his fingertip continued tracing. "In general, I don't think it's a great idea to hurt people..."

"But in particular?" he pressed.

I didn't know what it said about me—all I knew was I didn't care anymore. "It's kind of hot."

"Hmm," he said, as his finger stilled. "Then may I kiss you here, Mina?"

I stared down at the small point of contact between us. I'd just had his dick in my mouth, but somehow this felt more intimate to me.

Probably, because unlike all of the dicks in my past, it could actually mean something.

"Yeah," I said quietly. He pressed his fingertips to cover my mark, and I felt a movement over it, although I couldn't see anything. "What?—"

"I could kiss you—or taste you—with any part of me," he said, and a forked tongue lashed out from where his fingertips were by way of demonstration, licking towards my slit. "I only maintain this shape so that you find me more comforting."

I gawked down at his hand. "That's not the word I would use for it."

"Perhaps understandable is," he said, and chuckled darkly. "So tell me the rest of things."

I watched his hand, trying to parse what I was seeing and feeling simultaneously, before realizing I wanted to just give up.

I was tired of holding everything in—and everything back.

"I begged him to stop," I continued, as the parts of Sylas that were not touching me became more diffuse, clouding the small space around me like fog.

"He didn't listen to my queen?" Sylas asked archly, in a whisper by the side of my face. I felt him against my cheek, not like a kiss, but a caress, and on my jaw and neck, too. "For that, I will cut off his ears and feed them to him."

I was taking bigger and bigger breaths now, and I supposed I ought to be worried about inhaling him in, but I figured he could manage that—and—maybe that was what I wanted besides. To take some of him inside of me, so that I could make it through my rest of my days, relying on his strength instead of mine.

Because if I'd been like Sylas, they wouldn't have been able to hurt me in the first place—or ever get to Ella.

"Ella—" I said, squeaking her name.

"I will go back to torturing him for answers soon," Sylas purred, "but not until you finish sharing with me."

I closed my eyes and sank back some—and found myself caught, like I was in an embrace. After so long alone it felt so—so— good —to have someone else be there for me.

And I did trust him, whether I wanted to or not.

So I grabbed his wrist away from where his fingertips were still kissing my mark and pulled it behind me enough that he would get the idea. "He hurt me here, too," I said, my voice no more than a whisper.

"Oh, my queen," Sylas whispered back. "Turn around and put your elbows on the ground."